Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything
he encounters needs pounding. - Abraham Kaplan

Critique of A New EarthBy Michael Armstrong
04/15/2018

The book is authored by Eckhart Tolle (ET), who has also authored and published at
least 3 other books, one of which is the #1 NY Times bestseller
The Power of Now.

In chapter one titled The Flowering of Human Consciousness, and in the section
called Evocation, ET lays a foundation for his book which
comprises an uncritical acceptance of some of the worst and most
fallacious evolutionistic concepts that current scientism is
promulgating. Not to put too fine of a point on it, ET does NOT have a
clue as to what actually happened in the ancient times and how the human
race got to where it is now. A very bad foundation and a most
unimpressive start. Is this just a “weakness”, or is this a fatal flaw?

In chapter two
titled Ego: The current State of Humanity ET makes the usual glib
and vague spiritual pronunciamentos and quickly indulges in intellectual
chicanery. One example will suffice:

"When a young child learns that a sequence of sounds produced by
the parents' vocal cords is his or her name, the
child begins to equate a word, which
in the mind becomes a thought, with who he or she is. At that stage, some children
refer to themselves in the third person. 'Johnny is hungry.'"

I and my friends not only have never
experienced this in raising our children and grandchildren, but we have
generally never even heard of such a thing. But on to the “slight of hand”:

"Soon after, they learn
the magic word 'I' and equate it with their name, which they have already equated
with who they are. Then other thoughts come and merge with
the original I-thought. The next step are thoughts of
me and mine to designate things that are somehow part of 'I' This
is identification with objects, which means investing things, but ultimately thoughts
that represent things, with a sense of self, thereby deriving an identity from them.
When 'my' toy breaks or is taken away, intense suffering
arises. Not because of any intrinsic value that the toy has—the
child will soon lose interest in it, and it will be replaced
by other toys, other objects—but
because of the thought of 'mine.' The toy became part of the child's developing
sense of self, of 'I.'"

The upset or “suffering” arises—as it always does—not because of any identification
of self or even primarily ownership (“mine”), but because the desire or need of
the child has been violated. Whether or not this desire or need is
infantile and transitory is beside the point; we have desires and
needs—we always will—, and when they get violated or unfulfilled, we
experience some pain and/or frustration, and possibly
suffer. This is ultimately the only definition of evil that holds up.
The above example of a child being upset HAS NOTHING TO DO with ego or
self mis-identification, and ET misconstrues the whole issue.

ET seems to be telling us that we have an ego problem. This is
news? How can a human NOT have an ego problem when we are born and
raised into and live in a reality where the constant message is one of
relentless indifference. And, can we imagine for one moment that ET
wouldn't have a problem if we stole his new car, took his new picnic
table from his yard or took money out of his bank account? ET has
something even
more deleterious than an ego problem; he apparently can't think straight!

This is such a
simple yet profound issue and illustration, and the misconstruing is not
trivial but indicative. At the very least the indication is of sloppy
thinking and careless analysis, and at the worst is an earmark of having
an agenda to persuade to a point of view that overrides the search for
truth. If you cannot see this, please do not attempt to talk with me
further about philosophical or spiritual issues!

We are born into an insane, troubled and dangerous world under a
sentence of death. Ernest Becker wrote two or three books—one a Pulitzer
prize winner—elucidating
this issue, and this is the single most important fact that influences
how we think, feel and behave. Upon ET ignoring this crucial context,
demonstrating a lack of rigorous critical thinking while indulging in
misconstruction, laying a fallacious foundation for his thinking further
in the book, and failing to relate a defensible paradigm to us in the
book, why is it that we should be impressed by his “spiritual”
pronunciamentos? I don’t get it! I am sorry, but this is “mush for the
masses”.